This Park’s For People

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I was recommended Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" before our trip to Utah in June. It's a memoir of Abbey's time as a ranger at Arches National Park. Mary read it before the trip, and everywhere we went at Arches she'd mention something about Abbey. I read it after the trip and really loved it. The experience of the park in the 1960s was very different than the park today. Abbey's vision of a National Park is that all visitors should be greeted by a 50 foot tall statue of Smokey the Bear that says this: A noble vision, to be Read more…

Priority Overload

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Gmail's touting a new feature called Priority Inbox. You can see their (kind of funny) video about the product here: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nt3gE9dGHQ?wmode=transparent] I understand where they're coming from, but this is still the wrong solution to the problem. Allow me to pull out a little GTD here … The problem with sorting by importance, as Priority Inbox does, is that the reason people feel stressed is because so much is important. And, by deferring the less important stuff to later, there's a greater likelihood it will become important down the line. If you only deal with emergencies, then … you'll Read more…

Books Panel this Wednesday!

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I'm really looking forward to our books panel this Wednesday. Some familiar names from Tacoma (Tom Llewellyn of Beautiful Angle and local author, sweet pea of Kings Books, and Neel Parikh of the Pierce County Library system) will join the publisher of the Mountaineers Kate Rogers and Sheryn Hana of the Book Publishers Network to discuss the future of books. RSVP today by emailing office@cityclubtacoma.org. Mention you saw it on my blog and we'll welcome you at the member rate.

On Nostalgia

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I ran into this quote on Andrew Sullivan's blog and was really struck by it. It's an excerpt from an interview with Matt Novak, who posts images of what people used to think the future would look like. Nostalgia as a symptom of fear is far too broad of an idea, and frankly I regret saying it so matter of factly. There is an important distinction I feel that we should make between personal nostalgia and societal nostalgia. Personal nostalgia is that smell of your first teddy bear or the feeling of your first kiss. Personal nostalgia is a wonderful Read more…

A week away from phones, Internets, Twitters, and Facebooks

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Early tomorrow morning I’m stepping away from computers and phones for a week on a retreat with several great people from around Tacoma. I’m going on the American Leadership Forum’s “wilderness experience” out near Mt. Adams. Since … oh maybe 1998 I can only think of a handful of times I’ve been without email or a phone for that amount of time. I’m looking forward to it actually. Professionally speaking, since working at the Grand, it’s been rare to have a vacation that I’ve been able to completely check out of work for. Even our best vacations had a certain Read more…

This is at a zoo.

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via failblog.org I appreciate warning signs that actually get your attention. If this sign just said “Danger: Do Not Enter” that’s not very specific. Why is it dangerous? I’ll quote one of E.B. White’s rules of style: “Be clear.” “Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway caused by a badly worded road sign, heartbreak among lovers caused by a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter, anguish of a traveler expecting to be met at a rail station and not being met because of a slipshod telegram. Read more…

Charlotte Valbert, savior of Tacoma’s Blueberry Park

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Valbert worked with Gatewood to rescue what is now Blueberry Park from development and improve it into a park with trails, picnic sites and 4,000 blueberry bushes. Of the dozens of honors she received, the City of Destiny Award, the Cox Conservation Award and the Washington Department of Parks and Recreation Citizens of Merit are among those that pleased her most. via thenewstribune.com A nice obituary in the paper by Kathleen Merryman. If you’ve been to Blueberry Park, you can see the legacy she’s left.